Special Venom for the U.S.

It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and Muammar Gaddafi was weary. As host of an Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) summit, he had been working around the clock for more than a week to try to salvage the conference. When not whisking about in his pale blue Bedouin robes or stylish dark suit, with half a dozen Kalashnikov-toting female bodyguards in blue berets swelling his progress, Gaddafi had spent the previous few days reading reports and consulting with other Arabs about the news from Lebanon. None of it was good from his standpoint. He had just seen off the last of his African guests and changed into a loose-fitting short-sleeve shirt and slacks. The exhaustion showed on his face and sounded in his voice. Instead of English, which he speaks well, he preferred to answer questions in Arabic as he conversed with TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott. Sometimes Gaddafi's comments were barely audible, but what they lacked in volume, they made up in vehemence. Talbott's report on the interview with the Libyan leader:

Gaddafi is not only angrier and more implacable than ever toward Israel and the U.S., he is disgusted with the Palestine Liberation Organization for even entertaining the idea of leaving Beirut, with the neighboring Arab states for accepting the Palestinians, and with the Soviet Union for not somehow preventing the U.S. from letting Israel get away with the invasion.

While refusing to name countries, Gaddafi was scathing about the eight states that have tentatively agreed to accept the P.L.O., including Syria, with which Libya is supposedly still negotiating a merger. "The reactionary Arab regimes that have had a hand in arranging the expulsion of the Palestinian resistance will themselves face the revenge of the Palestinians," Gaddafi said. "If the Palestinian fighters are dispersed to several Arab countries, the regimes there will suffer unrest. There will be destabilization in those countries. Moreover, the Palestinians will find a way to return [to Lebanon and to fight against Israel] across a number of fronts. Then perhaps the world will see that the only solution is to give the Palestinians their own homeland, to establish a Palestinian democratic state." Such a state, in Gaddafi's view, would not exist alongside Israel. It would supplant Israel.

Gaddafi is equally furious with Yasser Arafat and the central P.L.O. leadership for agreeing to leave Lebanon. "The fact is that right-wing Palestinians and right-wing Arab regimes have been accomplices in bringing about this shameful catastrophe, this disaster that has befallen the civilians [of Lebanon] and this threat to international peace. I believe the current leadership [of the Palestinians] has lost the justification for its existence. Out of this whole situation will perhaps come a new leadership that will be able to undo the disaster in Beirut, one that will be able to take over from the old leadership now that it has been defeated and discredited."

Gaddafi would like to do considerably more than pray for such a development. During the O.A.U. summit, he made headlines (and made more than a few of his African guests wince) when he urged the Arab world to unite in sending ten divisions and 500 warplanes to fight against Israel, with Gaddafi himself leading the charge. Since he floated the idea, events in Lebanon have moved gradually, suspensefully toward the sort of settlement Gaddafi so adamantly opposed. But he is still committed to the idea of leading a holy war: "I'm sticking to the proposal, and I will submit it to the Arab states that have the ability to deploy the necessary forces. If the Arabs could fulfill this plan, they would be playing a major role in achieving peace not just in the Middle East but throughout the world, because they would be putting an end to the Zionist military tyranny."

As for the international community, Gaddafi is fed up with the U.N.: "There is no point in having a Security Council when the U.S. uses its seat to support aggression and the other countries fail to use theirs to stop the aggression. We have informed the Soviet Union that it has a permanent seat in the Security Council and therefore should have done more to stop the aggression." Conversations with Gaddafi and other Libyan officials always trail off into vagueness about what exactly the Soviets should have done, the same sort of vagueness and unreality that shroud Gaddafi's talk about a pan-Arab army.

Gaddafi reserves a special venom for the U.S., only slightly denatured by a professed desire to "establish a dialogue and restore normal relations." Those few conciliatory words quickly give way to an embittered and cautionary recollection of the Gulf of Sidra dogfight in which he lost two planes just a year ago this week. "The Gulf of Sidra is Libyan territorial waters [a claim the U.S. and most other countries do not accept] , so it was the U.S., not our side, that used force there. We would rather negotiate with America, but we find ourselves compelled to use force. And we will use it again to repel aggression by our enemies, even if that leads to mass martyrdom on the part of our people. We're willing to turn the Gulf of Sidra into a red gulf, a gulf of blood, if that is the only choice we have."

But his deepest complaint with the U.S. is, as always, but now more than ever, American backing of Israel. "Because of Israel's policies, and America's support for those policies, the situation in the Middle East could lead to the Third World War. This crisis will lead to other crises in the future, and those in turn will eventually bring about an Arab decision to liberate our own lands. Then the war will not just be with Israel, but with America as well. If the Arabs defeat the Israelis, America will be forced to intervene directly or indirectly, and that will lead to the intervention of the Soviet Union. Remember that Israel has already become a nuclear power and in that way too is jeopardizing the peace of the world."

Concluded the Libyan leader: "Israel should not be joyful about its operation in Lebanon, because it is not over yet. Inshalhah [if God wills], Israel will be destroyed. But so will America's interests in the Arab world be destroyed, and everywhere else as well."

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